Gears of War: The Movie!

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IGN's dream pick for studio, director, cast, etc. should the highly-anticipated Xbox title go the feature film route.

By Eric Moro

To celebrate the release of the highly-anticipated Gears of War for the Xbox 360, the staff at IGN Movies decided to partake in some good 'ol fashioned speculation. What, with popular videogame properties getting snatched up by Hollywood left and right, it's no real stretch of the imagination to think that Epic Games/Microsoft's latest will eventually go the route of a live-action adaptation. We just thought we'd help it along a bit by choosing a studio, visual effects team, producer, writer/director and cast for the project.

Gears of War takes place on the Earth-like planet of Sera, where civilization has just emerged from a 79-year long war. The discovery of the energy source "imulsion" is what started the "Pendulum Wars," but its near limitless abundance is eventually what brought them to a close, with the nations of the world agreeing to share the supply. But on the eve of worldwide peace came the Locusts &#Array; a race of evil subterranean creatures driven by their desire to kill. They emerged from underneath every major city and destroyed a quarter of the planet's population in one fell swoop.

Humanity's surviving remnants retreated into the granite-encrusted Jacinto Plateau &#Array; impenetrable to the Locusts &#Array; where they launched an attack that had little effect on the enemy, but did manage to destroy 90-percent of the planet's surface.

Cut to Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) soldier Marcus Fenix &#Array; a brilliant, but impulsive soldier. During the hole up at Jacinto, he disobeys orders and leaves his post in a failed attempt to rescue his father. Fenix is sentenced to 40 years in the brig; 14 years into his prison term is where our story takes place.

Locus have infiltrated and are taking over the prison. Suddenly, Fenix's cell door is blown open and in pops Dominic Santiago &#Array; a COG soldier and Fenix's best friend. With the rest of his squad in tow, Santiago throws his friend a weapon and asks him to rejoin the battalion in an effort to defeat the Locus once and for all.

So enough with the setup; let's get down to filling out this would-be production&#Array;

STUDIO

You might think that every major studio in Hollywood would be jumping at the chance to adapt Gears of Wars for the big screen. But as 20th Century Fox and Universal have demonstrated by pulling out of their deal for Halo, the fact that a videogame is revered by fans is not enough to belay the fears associated with sky rocketing production costs. Plus, several games have been butchered by the notorious uncreative studio system, so great care and consideration must to be taken when choosing a production company.

That's why we put our money on New Line Cinema. They've demonstrated an admirable ability to take risks by fronting the funds necessary to produce all three Lord of the Rings films at once. They've also shown an uncanny ability to stay out of the way of the filmmaker, allowing Peter Jackson in the aforementioned movie trilogy to make a true adaptation of Tolkien's books without zany creative suggestions from gray-haired men in business suits.

Lastly, New Line has demonstrated an ability to foster franchises (love 'em or hate 'em), which is exactly what a Gears of War movie would become.

VISUAL EFFECTS TEAM

This one was a no-brainer. The only team truly capable of imagining Sera's ever-changing landscapes, the Locus, their monstrous beasts and the COG's kick-ass weaponry are Richard Taylor and the folks at WETA. Think Halo meets Lord of the Rings and you'll get an idea of what we're talking about. And if that's not clear enough for you, check out these LOTR/Gears of War similarities:

The Brumack = Oliphants Drone = Orcs Berserker = Uruk-Hai

We rest our case.

PRODUCER

Gritty, intense, action. Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Domino) can produce this in spades. A contender for director of our Gears of War film, we decided that his talents would perhaps better be suited in a producing capacity. His lack of experience in the sci-fi genre is what lost him the gig, but his ability to frame real world characters in exciting action sequences is what makes him the perfect creative mentor for this project. After all, the core of any memorable genre film is strong characters.

WRITER/DIRECTOR

So we need a director &#Array; preferably one who can adapt the screenplay himself &#Array; for Gears of War, a genre film, with big action, blue/green screen work and guys in latex and rubber suits. Only one name comes to mind: Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Blade II). The self-proclaimed fanboy would not doubt demonstrate a mastery of the film's sci-fi and horror elements, but he's also displayed a fondness, respect and understanding of videogames as a flourishing storytelling medium.

In a recent conversation with IGN, the filmmaker revealed: "I do believe that the future of storytelling lies within an interactive platform and more likely or not it will come out of a marriage of movies, videogames, and TV, so I'm trying to learn all those mediums. I think [it will happen in] the next five years. I believe all platforms will fuse into one so that you'll be able to be progressing on a multi-platform game, unfolding the story, and you'll be able to get curveballs thrown at you through the Internet that you can download as you're progressing and that are kept hidden almost until the last moment. So that you have an almost ongoing relationship as a storyteller with the people unfolding the story. I think there is a future there. The technology is there, and it's just about applying the storytelling."